KMT forming its own cross-party economics group

By Lindy Yeh / STAFF REPORTER

With the DPP still unable to count on a guaranteed stable legislative majority and policy debates regularly floundering amid partisan feuding, an issue-based cross-party legislative group is to be formally established today with the aim of establishing bipartisanship on matters of economics.

The group, to be named the "Society to Advance the Economy" (財經促進社), is the initiative of the Generation-E Alliance (e世代問政聯盟), a KMT legislative faction, whose members are mostly ethnic Taiwanese and supporters of the localization line advocated by former President Lee Teng-hui.

The group is to hold its founding meeting this afternoon.

According to lawmaker Shyh Jong-shyong (徐中雄), the leader of the Generation-E Alliance, many members of the DPP, TSU and PFP, including independent legislators, are expected to attend.

"In an effort to prevent further political struggle and partisanship in policy debates in the legislature, our goal is to form a legislative consensus across party lines on issues of economics in order to fight for Taiwan's economy, " Shyh told the Taipei Times yesterday.

"We should not waste our resources and energy on political infighting between ruling and opposition camps. Instead, we aim to unite colleagues whose stances are relatively neutral and undogmatic to form a cross party group outside party lines and ideological feuding, in order to create room for rational discussion on economic issues," added Shyh.

Shyh said that 14 members of the Generation-E Alliance are founding members of the group, and several lawmakers from different parties, such as Shen Fu-hsiung (沈富雄), leader of the DPP's Justice faction (正義連線), have shown interest in joining the group.

But since the PFP imposes strict party discipline on its members, the PFP lawmakers who are interested in joining the group's functions have yet to ask for the PFP legislative caucus's permission, Shyh added.

As lawmakers who have shown interest in joining the society from different parties have not announced their position publicly, Shyh declined to name his colleagues who will take part in the first meet this afternoon.

Shen Fu-hsiung could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Though not approached by the KMT faction, Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯), a former DPP whip who has worked closely with President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) to form a stable legislative majority, said that the formation of any legislative groups which will help improve legislative efficiency is welcomed by the DPP.